Wood on Words: Take away the prefix, and you might take away the meaning

Thursday

Dec 31, 2009 at 12:01 AMDec 31, 2009 at 2:27 PM

If something is “disheveled” or “unkempt,” could it also be “heveled” or “kempt”?

Barry Wood

If something is “disheveled” or “unkempt,” could it also be “heveled” or “kempt”? So asked Ruth Penticoff of New Milford, Ill.

And my wife threw in “disgruntled” and “gruntled.”

So let’s explore the sometimes wacky world of prefixes.

A prefix is “a syllable, group of syllables, or word joined to the beginning of another word or base to alter its meaning or create a new word.”

Conveniently, the “pre-” in “prefix” is an example. The root word is the Latin “praefixus,” which combines “pre-” (meaning “before”) with “figere” (“to fix”).

Sometimes, as with “disgruntled” and “disheveled,” the “new” word outlasts the original. Webster’s says “gruntle” is obsolete, so much so that it’s not even listed in the “G” section.

When it was in use, it was a “frequentative” form of “grunt.”

In grammar, that means “expressing frequent and repeated action.” So “gruntle” would be to frequently and repeatedly grunt. The principal meaning of “grunt” is “to make the short, deep, hoarse sound of a hog.” For a hog, it could even be an expression of relative contentment.

However, when humans grunt, the sound is usually made “in annoyance, contempt, effort, etc.” In other words, by someone who’s disgruntled.

“Dis-” generally puts a negative spin on a word, meaning “not” or “the opposite of.” In “disgruntled,” it’s acting as an intensifier, going with the flow instead of against.

In the case of “disheveled,” there may never have been a “heveled” — or, more appropriately, “cheveled.” The word comes from the Old French “descheveler,” meaning “to tousle,” which merged “des-” (the French version of “dis-”) with “chevel” — “hair.”

And that’s what “disheveled” is — “disarranged and untidy; touseled; rumpled: said of hair, clothing, etc.”

(By the way, the root of the French “chevel” is the Latin for “hair,” “capillus,” which survives in “capillary.”)

“Unkempt,” whose first definition is pretty much the same as that of “disheveled,” and “kempt” are both still around. They came from an Old English word for “a comb.”

The modern use of “kempt” for “neat; tidy; well-groomed” is considered a back-formation of “unkempt,” which indicates that, in references other than combing, “unkempt” came first.

And “unkempt” also can mean “not polished or refined; crude; rough.”

Now for a cautionary note: Something that looks like a prefix may not be one.

For instance, “dis-” is not acting as a prefix in “discus,” “discotheque” and “dismal.” In fact, in the last one, the second syllable is actually the one that comes from a prefix.

“Dismal” means “depressing,” “bleak,” “dreary,” “miserable” — a real upbeat word. In Middle English, it began as a noun referring to “evil days.”

That came from a Medieval Latin term for “evil days” — “dies mali.” We’re more accustomed to seeing “mal-,” meaning “bad or badly,” “wrong” or “ill,” at the other end of words, such as “malady,” “malevolent” and “malfunction.”

Finally, “dis” has even managed to break free and become a word on its own — slang for “to show disrespect for; insult” or “to express strong disapproval of; condemn.”

Now it can spread its negativity all by itself.

Contact Barry Wood at bwood@rrstar.com or read his blog at blogs.e-rockford.com/woodonwords/.